23:53 - Sunny PagliaccioNote to self: Do NOT open links on max volume in the middle of a quiet night. Otherwise, not bad. :D

23:52 - ApothecaryFast food workers planning a strike in support of $15/hour wages next month. I'm a tutor in a reading lab at a college and I don't even make that much, a bit of an overestimation of one's importance, don'tcha think?

It actually bothers me a lot that this album is considered not only good but also a classic by a lot of power metal fans. It might have been influent, although I don't really want to believe that, but it sure isn't good. I have never really liked Hammerfall - nowadays they are very good at writing catchy songs even if they're often quite boring, but on 'Glory To The Brave' the attempt to be catchy fails quite hard.

Song structures, riffs and solos aren't way to bad for a début at all, but that doesn't help very much when the most of the songs lacks good melodies, good vocals, good lyrics and catchy hooks. There you've got another problem with this album - I really can't stand the vocals, mainly because the Swedish accent bothers me, but I don't think Cans sings very good either. He is quite whiny and nasal, and if a power metal singer wants to try a more falsetto based style instead of the more 'manly' alternative, he really needs to do better than Cans to impress me. The lyrics are also quite stupid and 'I Believe' could be one of the worst ballad attempts that I have heard. 'Glory To The Brave' isn't totally despisable though, the opener is not bad at all and 'Child Of The Damned' remains one of my favourite Hammerfall songs.

Luckily enough - as I mentioned, Hammerfall evolved to a, if not good at least very professional metal band and Cans turned out to become a really good singer. I wouldn't recommend this album to anyone, except for a fan that has heard all their other albums (or maybe to someone who finds it for 5$, the better songs might be worth that). 'Glory To The Brave' slightly reaches the OK level on my rating scale.

Well, to me, this clearly is Hammerfall's best effort ever. Yet I agree, it's not a very good album at all.

I claim that most of the members are very professional (today), but well, that's not enough. Justin Timberlake could also be called professional... anyway, I prefer to listen to their newer stuff because of that reason. I was waiting to get bashed for this review but it doesn't seem so

I personally like this album. There is nothing really special or unique about it, but everything is just right. I consider it a classic because this is pretty much traditional power metal very well played (although not very imaginative). My personal rating is a 6.5 or 7 (average music well performed).

I think this is the best Hammerfall album. But I find the band so forgettable and their recent material so horrible, it doesn't mean much.
Of course, it is not original at all. Hammerfal has never been about originality. But at least it was decent Powermetal back then.

ErnilEnNaur - 16.02.2011 at 00:44

"Song structures, riffs and solos aren't way to bad for a début at all, but that doesn't help very much when the most of the songs lacks good melodies, good vocals, good lyrics and catchy hooks."

You nailed it, absolutely nailed it. I agree 100%. However, "Stone Cold" is a pretty good song, nothing brilliant, but certainly much better than the rest of the album, though it too suffers from a very lame chorus.

I will never forgive Niklas Sundin, Mikael Stanne and jesper Strömblad for forming this band together with Oscar Dronjak

Holy crap! I... I did not know that. I feel weird now. All of them playing melodic death metal, what the hell happened in 1993... What were they thinking?!

to make it even worse Johan Larsson was also part of the very first line-up of the band.

By all indications I think that the band (which was probably not even known as "Hammerfall" back then) either started out as a Gothenburg-metal band, or was basically a joke of some sort, like "hey dudes, let's get drunk and try to play Helloween mixed with Manowar and see what happens".

Well, with no originality they can never do more than a 9, and with this ballsless and faceless vocalist they can never do more than an 8, but this one at least is an 8. Great closer! A good thing they used all their good songs, don't bother with the followup.